


Ever at Your Side

by nakodileDreamer



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Description of Ardyn's torturing during ch. 13, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, MT!Prompto, Prompto is sad TM, angsty prompto, confused prompto, i hurt myself writing this i cry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 09:57:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12838770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nakodileDreamer/pseuds/nakodileDreamer
Summary: Prompto Argentum had spent his entire life knowing he was different than others. I shouldn't have come as a surprise when Ardyn told him what he really was...told him that he'd been created to become a weapon to the empire. He left that facility thinking he'd simply meet up with his friends with just another burden to bear on his own...Until Ardyn caught him again, like a fly in a spider's web.One can't control their own fate...what if his leads him to hurt his best friend?





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Haha look it's my first FFXV fanfic and I start off with hella angsty Prompto fanfic :D Be prepared for a lot of sadness and tears and maybe some fluff thrown in to keep you sane. Inspired by all the MT!Prom fics out there, particularly Running Behind! Though this is more of Prompto getting all those mods during chapter 13. 
> 
> Looking forward to how people like this, and don't forget to leave a comment if you enjoy it! First chapter is super short, more of a prologue to set up to the actual story, but I promise it'll be more than 1000 words for every chapter here on out XD

NH-01987. That's what Ardyn kept calling him. Is that his name? He doesn't know anymore. He doesn't really know _anything_ anymore. Kinda euphoric, really. But that wasn't important right now. What was important was the fact that his wrists and ankles were strapped tightly down to a table, the surface cold and unforgiving under his back.

Something else was there too, nibbling at the corners of his hazy mind. He couldn't remember couldn't.....Noctis? A name. A place. He didn't know. He was too far gone on the drugs pumped into his system, too focused on the way his stomach clenched and throbbed with whatever that man had forced down his throat earlier, some liquid shining black and viscous. NH-01987 tried to swallow, but his throat and mouth felt like someone had stuffed a handful of cotton into them. Maybe they had. He huffed out a tired breath, noticing just then that his eyes weren't even open. What happened to him? 

Where had he been before this place? He tried to think but it was like trying to walk through quicksand. Thoughts and images flowed sluggishly through his mind's eye, suggesting cold steel and long hallways...bullet wounds and scary realizations. Maybe some sort of worm monster thrown in there? A whine left his throat, low and cracking, the sound barely human. But he wasn't, was he? Human, that is. 

That's right. Not human. He'd learned that in the place of steel and hallways. He wasn't human. Maybe he’d started as human, but he sure as hell wasn’t _now_. Every time he tried to move he could feel them, pulling at the barely healed skin around them. Ports, a series of metal implants, traveling down his spine. There was one over the left side of his heart as well, a large triangle crudely wedged into his skin like shrapnel. They were to connect to the MT armor apparently. 

His memory was clearing now. That’s what he was….an MT. A weapon of the empire. He’d been born as one, but had been taken before the Nifs could experiment on his body. Ardyn had taken it upon himself to finish the job those Nif bastards couldn't. He couldn’t go back like this.

Back to where? He couldn’t think of what he couldn’t go back to. Home? His friends? Who were his friends, if he had any? Everything was jumbled in his brain, the clarity he’d felt a moment ago gone with his consciousness. He faded to black.

When NH-01987 woke again, it was to a warm hand cradling his face. “Back amongst the living, are we?” Ardyn. That he could remember. His entire world these past few days had boiled down to two things: Ardyn and pain. A dry growl left his throat and he gave a momentary struggle against his bindings. “Ah ah ah…don’t want to bruise those pretty little wrists, do we? Now, stay still, pet….Only a few more things before you’re ready for the prince to come save you, yeah?” There was a laugh, cold and sinister, and NH-01987 honed onto the sound, let it fuel the hatred boiling in his gut. 

Then there was more pain, centered behind his eyelids. Oh god…Ardyn was cutting him open, his blood dripping to the floor, coloring the grey metal dark and red. A scream left his throat, but NH-01987 couldn’t hear it. He could feel it but all he could hear was ringing. His vision went black, the feel of Ardyn’s fingers and cold steel on his face a presence in NH-01987’s mind. Then a sickening pop. His head felt empty, centered around where his eyes would be. He didn’t stay awake too long. 

The next time NH-01987 awoke he was hyper-aware of every little sound around him. His hearing felt unbalanced, going in and out like someone turning the volume dial on a radio. Ardyn must have put more parts inside his body, to modify his hearing. His eyes too. The area around his eyes was sore, but when he opened them he heard a mechanical whirring, his vision sharpening and dimming to adjust to the light in the room. Gods, he was barely human anymore….

Within hours, NH-01987 felt stronger than he had in days, though still weakened by hunger and blood loss. Ardyn came in once during this time, unhooking NH-01987 from the table and dragging his thrashing body into a cell, throwing him without any care. He’d said something before he’d left, but…the words escaped his fuzzy mind. It was days more before he’d be rescued, the only sustenance thrown his way being stale bread and water. 

He clung to those bits of food and drink as tightly as he could. 

When light finally flooded into his lonely stone prison, bringing with it three men whose names escaped him at the moment, NH-01987 let out a quiet whimper, flinching back from the arms coming at him. They didn’t hurt, however, and that confused him.

One of the men, a large one with tattoos on his arms and shoulders, picked him up gently and whispered something to another with glasses. They were familiar to him, but he couldn’t place it. The Tattooed one turned to a shorter man with soft looking hair and a broken expression on his face. “Noctis….he needs healing…” 

Noctis. Noctis. _Noctis_. It all came back to him then, and Gods, it **hurt**. He thrashed in the man’s arms, a pained yell working its way free of his tight throat, and the Tattooed man (Gladio, his brain provided him), held him tighter. “Prompto! Calm down it’s okay!”

Prompto. It was said as if that was his name. But it wasn’t anymore, was it? No. MT Units didn't deserve names. They deserved _designations_. 

And his was NH-01987.


	2. Waking up: Prologue part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! I've started school and it's been...crazy to say the least. Apologies for the shortness of this and the first chapter, i'm just trying to get into the mindset of MT Prom and trying to flesh out what exactly is happening here! I'll try to get on a more regular posting schedule but it all depends on school TwT

When NH-01987 opened his eyes to a cheap motel room instead of his cramped cell, he first thought he was dreaming. After all, Noctis wasn't coming, was he? He wouldn't come and rescue a monster like him. He was meant to kill the Prince-turned-King after all, or at least, that's what Ardyn had told him. 

Ardyn.

That name made his stomach churn, his body lurching to the side as he threw up bile and the stale bread he'd been given in his cell the last time he was conscious. Immediately there were hands on him, and he felt the whimpers and pleads of Please stop leave his lips without really hearing them. He was met only with gentleness and a calm voice reassuring him he was alright. 

Alright? That couldn't be it. He was in the cell, in that lab, being modified and punished day after day by Ardyn and a group of scientists. He was never alright. But….It sure did seem like he wasn't hallucinating, as hard as that was to believe. 

"We need to get a potion in him….but we don't know the extent of the damage the Chancellor has caused…." 

He heard the voice talking but his brain wouldn't connect to who exactly it belonged to. There was a distinct lilt to the voice….as if its owner was of a higher class. "Ig….nis?" his voice was dry and quiet, rough with disuse and sending him into a violent coughing fit. He lurched to his side again, his throat constricting and causing him to heave, but there was nothing left in his stomach to puke up. 

"Shhhhh….shhh Prompto it's alright. It's okay, i've got you" Ignis said (NH-01987's brain was finally supplying a face and a name to the voice), wrapping gentle arms around his shoulders and helping him sit up so as to breathe a bit better. 

After a short coughing fit, NH-01987 felt like he could actually get some air into his lungs, and he wrapped his own arms around himself tightly. "What are you going to do with me? Am I going to be corrected?" he asked, small and frightful. He knew, logically, that Ignis would not hurt him. Noctis and Gladio wouldn't either. But there was this fear, this anxiety, that they would find out what he was, and deem him an enemy. That they would hurt him...kill him. It made his body shake and his heart clench painfully in his chest. 

"Do with you? What do you mean Correct?" Ignis asked, brows furrowed in a way that made NH-01987 want to reach out and smooth the creases on his forehead. Ignis shouldn't look that worried. Not for a thing like him. 

"Yes. Correct. I'm….The subject is defective. It should be corrected." He didn't want Ignis to correct him. But defective units needed to be corrected….right? 

"I'm not….Prompto, dear i'm not going to correct you." Ignis said, his voice thick with worry and confusion. Gentle hands carded through NH-01987's hair, and he couldn't help himself as he relaxed into the touch. If he wasn't going to be corrected...maybe he would be fine? A broken sob left his throat, his body lurching forwards to cling to Ignis for dear life, emotions spilling forth like a faucet cleaned of a particularly bad clog. Ignis simply held him, cooing words of comfort as NH-01987 cried into his shirt, wetting the fabric and probably leaving trails of snot from his ugly crying. 

Gladio and Noctis chose that moment to enter the room, the Prince immediately going to NH-01987's side and fluttering his hands over the MT's body as if he didn't know quite what he wanted to do. Gladio put a hand on Noct's shoulder, mumbling something about giving Prompto space, which he was grateful for. He just wanted to hold onto Ignis right now, and more people would send him into a panic. It would take a couple hours until he could calm down enough to go outside where the other two were speaking in hushed tones, glancing up as soon as the door opened. 

"Prompto...Astrals you had me worried…" Noctis' arms were around him immediately, and he melted into the touch, wrapping his arms tightly around his best friend and letting out a shaky breath. 

"I think...I think i'm feeling a bit better. Just ah...confused when I first woke up, ya know?" he said, tone joking. He couldn't let them see just how much Ardyn had affected him. He couldn't let them see what he'd become. 

He couldn't show them he was a monster.


End file.
